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“Never succumb to the tyranny of reasonable voices. What do I mean by that? There will be a cacophony of well meaning people in your life who will tell you to stop playing games or buckle down and quit scribbling away in notebooks and generally remind you that you need to grow up and be responsible. The life of a designer or an independent contractor in general is not the life for everyone. There are no regular paydays, no paid vacations, and no health care. All of this can convince you that the reasonable voices have it right on more than one occasion, but you have to persevere beyond all of that. When you do what you love, you won’t need to get pumped up or motivated to get to work. You can expect to be disappointed, criticized, disheartened, and frustrated on your worst days. You can also look forward to feelings of satisfaction, triumph, vindication, and elation when something you formed out of your own head and crafted with your own hands is understood, embraced, enjoyed, and even championed by someone else.”
— Levi Mote (@LeviMote) of Bonsai Games, on The Game Crafter
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Is Kickstarter encouraging us to short-change small games? AJ Quinn crunches the numbers. His conclusion:

“One conclusion is that we’re overly rewarding expensive games. I think a more important conclusion is that we’re encouraging makers of simple, fun, cheap games to complicate them and start adding on unnecessary features to justify a higher purchase price because without a higher price they will fail. That’s a huge bummer.”

http://www.scratchtheline.blogspot.com/2012/03/take-that-little-guy.html

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Curious how an established publisher gets a game from concept to store shelf? 

Asmodee shares its process in its “Making of a Game” series:

Part 1, prototype to project:
http://us.asmodee.com/ressources/articles/making-a-game-from-prototype-to-project.php 

Part 2, theme and graphics:
http://us.asmodee.com/ressources/articles/the-making-of-a-game-chapter-2-theme-and-graphics.php

Part 3, visualization to realization:
http://us.asmodee.com/ressources/articles/the-making-of-a-game-part-3-from-vision-to-realization.php

Part 4, final touches:
http://us.asmodee.com/ressources/articles/the-making-of-a-game-part-4.php

5--make that 6--tips for new game publishers from Panda Game Manufacturing

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@panda_gm:

I’ll be tweeting 5 tips for new game designers/publishers from the #GAMA overseas manufacturing session in case you weren’t there last week. 

#1 Keep your game specs simple for your first release. If you want to do something different, limit it to one unique or special component.

Tip 2: Custom 2d wooden shapes are relatively easy to make & cheaper than plastics (low setup costs). Homesteaders Game is a great example.

Tip 3: Use interlocking cardboard for fancy 3d shapes at a fraction of the cost of plastic / wood. (ie Merchants & Marauders Treasure Chest)

Tip 4: Choose an order quantity that could fill exactly HALF a container. There’s a chance we could combine the shipment with another order.

A note on combining your shipment with another order - this currently only works if you ship to Game Salute or PSI.

Tip 5: Add some buffer time to your release schedule There are many ways a project could get sidetracked. Under promise & over deliver!

Tip 6: We promised 5 tips but we’ve got an extra one coming up!

We can make dice as small as 8mm. This could be used as an alternative to wooden cubes! Price difference depends on order quantity.

http://pandagm.com/